Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, looking to bolster his the national security credentials, plans to put the blame for leaks of classified information at the feet of President Barack Obama.

In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention on Tuesday, Romney was to call out Obama’s White House for leaks to the media and assure veterans that a Romney administration would keep a tight lid on secret information.

“What kind of White House would reveal classified material for political gain?” Romney was to say, according to prepared remarks released by his campaign. “I’ll tell you right now: Mine won’t.”

After a weekend truce following the deadly shooting rampage in Aurora, Colorado, Romney and Obama have returned to their intense campaign postures.

Romney departs this week on a trip that will take him to London, Israel and Poland in an attempt to round out a campaign that has so far focused almost exclusively on the U.S. economy.

In preparation for his trip, Romney will blast Obama over leaks, including those about the raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and cyber-warfare that has reportedly been used against Iran.

Romney’s speech excerpts made no mention of major foreign policy issues like the conflict in Syria or U.S. relations with Russia and China.

Democrats have long accused Romney of being a foreign policy “lightweight.” In response, he appears to be making the security leaks one of his primary paths toward attacking Obama on foreign affairs.

“This conduct is contemptible,” Romney said in his prepared remarks. “It betrays our national interest. It compromises our men and women in the field. And it demands a full and prompt investigation, with explanation and consequence.”

Attorney General Eric Holder last month appointed two chief federal prosecutors to spearhead an investigation into suspected leaks of classified information amid allegations that the White House made the disclosures to boost Obama’s election chances.

In his speech, Romney also was to criticize the “sequestration” trigger Obama and congressional Republicans agreed to last summer.

The deal puts in place an automatic $1-trillion budget cut — half of that in defence spending — that Romney says is an “arbitrary, across-the-board budget reduction that would saddle the military with a trillion dollars in cuts, severely shrink our force structure and impair our ability to meet and deter threats.”

While the economy has provided an easy target for Republicans to take aim at Obama, the president has generally received good marks for his handling of foreign policy.

Obama made a speech to the VFW meeting on Monday and was generally well received as he called on Republican legislators to stop “playing politics” with the U.S. military budget.

OBAMA KEEPS UP BAIN ATTACKS

As well, Obama’s campaign on Romney’s business history and refusal to release more tax records appear to be working, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed on Tuesday.

More than a third of voters who are registered to a party or as an independent said in the online survey that what they had heard about Romney’s taxes and his time at Bain Capital private equity firm had given them a less favorable impression of the Republican candidate.

And particularly worrying for Romney is that a large slice of independent voters — whom he needs to win the November 6 election — are also buying into the Obama campaign’s portrayal of him as a ruthless businessman who may be hiding something in his taxes.

“With three-quarters of registered voters saying they’ve heard at least a little about these issues, I would say the Obama campaign has been successful in raising them to the national conscience,” said Ipsos pollster Julia Clark.

After weeks of accusations from Obama and his allies that Romney cut U.S. jobs and sent them overseas while he headed Bain, 36% of registered voters said the issue had made them see Romney less favorably, compared to 18 percent who said they were now more favorable toward the former governor of Massachusetts.

Among independents, 26% regarded him less favorably and 13% more favorably after hearing about his business tenure.

The Romney campaign counters that Obama is trying to distract attention from the poor economy with frequent ads and speeches about Bain and the Republican’s personal finances.

The Democrats are also calling on Romney to release more tax returns beyond the two years’ worth of information he has given so far. An ad last week suggested that not being more open about his taxes meant the White House hopeful had something to hide.

A RIGHT TO KNOW

Almost half of the poll respondents said Americans have a right to know a presidential candidate’s financial history going back many years, while a third said Romney doesn’t need to release any more tax returns and further requests to do so are an invasion of his privacy.

Among registered voters, 37% said what they had heard about Romney’s taxes made them less favorable toward him, while among independents 30 percent agreed.

The poll results were not all negative for Romney, though. The Republican holds a 5 percentage point advantage over Obama among registered voters on his “plan, policy or approach” to the country’s economy.

The margin was 36 to 31% among registered voters, but 22 to 19 in favor of Obama among independents.

Americans also showed signs of displeasure about a candidate’s taxes becoming such an important part of the national dialogue. More than half of registered voters — 55% — said the debate about Romney’s tax returns was a waste of time, while 45% said it was an important part of the campaign.

But independents, by a margin of 54 to 46, saw Romney’s taxes as important in the fight for the White House.

The poll of 1,195 adults, including 962 registered voters, was taken between Thursday and Monday.

The precision of Reuters/Ipsos online surveys are measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points for all Americans. For registered voters it was plus or minus 3.7, and for independents it was plus or minus 8.7.